Chapter 10 - Female Offenders: Violent Crimes - Key Terms

Key terms from Stacy L Mallicoat's Women and Crime: The Essentials

Affiliate

A person, business, or organization officially connected to a larger parent entity.

Altruistic filicide

The murder of a child by a parent who believes the killing is in the child's best interest.

Filicide

The deliberate act of a parent murdering their own child.

Independent female gang

An all-female street or youth group that operates autonomously under its own name, colors, and leadership.

Infanticide

The intentional killing of a human infant under the age of one year.

Jumped in (walking the line)

Violent, physical initiation rituals required to prove an initiate's loyalty and toughness before they are officially accepted into a group or gang.

Liberation hypothesis

Proposes that fact-finders (such as juries and judges) exercise greater discretion and are more heavily influenced by personal biases—like an offender's race, gender, or pretrial publicity—when adjudicating minor or less serious offenses where evidentiary constraints are weaker.

Mixed-gender gangs

Groups of both male and female members that engage in organized delinquency, community violence, or illicit activities.

Neonaticide

The deliberate act of a parent murdering their own child within the first 24 hours of life.

Postpartum syndrome

A serious mood disorder that occurs after childbirth. Symptoms include extreme sadness, anxiety, exhaustion, and difficulty bonding with the baby, which last longer than two weeks.

Pulling a train (sexed in)

A hazing ritual or gang initiation rite, where prospective members are required to have sex with multiple existing members to gain group membership.

Social injury hypothesis

Asserts that behaviors classified as crimes should be defined by the tangible "social injury" and harm they cause to society, rather than strictly by narrow, technical legal violations.

Vice Queens

A prominent female auxiliary and counterpart street gang to the male Conservative Vice Lords, formed in the 1960s in the West Side neighborhoods of Chicago. While they originally operated as a support and social group, many members evolved into active participants in the street conflicts and neighborhood operations of the Almighty Vice Lord Nation.

Violent offenses

Crimes in which an offender uses, attempts to use, or threatens to use physical force against another person. These acts either cause, or carry a substantial risk of causing, physical or psychological harm.